


The course of true love never did run through a tiki bar

by TheDreamingSpires



Series: art for the soul [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Dates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, unstoppable love of breakfast food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:10:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8151787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDreamingSpires/pseuds/TheDreamingSpires
Summary: Step 1: find your soulmate, your one and only, your forever manStep 2: go on a date and try not to screw it up





	

Bucky sat at a corner table in the swanky tiki bar in Midtown he always brought dates to, and hated himself.

It had been a kneejerk reaction, akin to how he always bought double stuff Oreos because he knew Nat preferred them, or how he never ordered the peanut butter milkshake at the bagel shop in front of Carol because she had some kind of weird-ass bet running with Stark than involved not eating any of her favourite foods. When he was in charge of a first date location, he picked this tiki bar. He even had the number on speed dial.

And god, did he feel like a douche. This was a slightly skeevy bar, admittedly prettily dressed up in leis, for desperate single people to work out the logistics of bumping uglies, not the place you showed your soulmate as somewhere you liked to frequent.

As he peered around, he saw it as Steve was going to see it when he walked through those doors. The music was just this side of overpowering, and kind of made the whole place feel like a dodgy ride at Disneyland. The other clientele were showing a bit too much skin, and also a bit too much interest – two men had already asked if the seat next to Bucky was free, one of them even waggled his eyebrows, so heaven only knew what they would do when they clapped eyes on Steve, the human equivalent of a chocolate centrepiece. Not that that was going to be an issue, considering the sultry lighting that normally made Bucky feel sexy now just highlighted that it was going to be bloody hard to even _see_ Steve, let alone have a proper conversation with him. With most of his dates, he didn’t really give a crap about looking at them, just wanted to work out whether they’d be down for going back to his place. With Steve, he wanted the full package.

When he’d told Nat that, she’d made a crude joke about packages, done a pelvic thrust, and then high-fived Carol, just giving him another prime example of why he should never had introduced them to each other.

Bucky was seriously considering crying the whole thing off and rearranging it as a brunch date at the pancake house Carol had suggested.

Before he could whip out his phone, the door opened, letting in a welcome breath of fresh air and a slightly disconcerting beam of light from the streetlamps outside. As he turned to look, he recognised the unmistakable frame of Steve, lurking in the doorway. He seemed to be squinting around himself, and looked visibly relieved when Bucky surged out of his seat, waving excitedly.

“Hi, Bucky,” Steve said warmly, once he got close to the table. “How are you?” When most people said that, they sounded kind of false, just fulfilling a social nicety. Steve honestly sounded as though he cared, kind eyes crinkling as he took in Bucky, sitting awkwardly in his corner booth in his nicest button-down.

Bucky kind of wanted to melt, and not just because whoever ran this damn bar thought that maintaining an ‘authentic’ tropical heat inside was a good plan.

“I’m fine, thanks. Great, actually,” Bucky stuttered, then looked down at his place-setting. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“Me too,” said Steve simply, sitting down in the seat across from Bucky and placing his leather bomber jacket on the back of the chair. “I’ve got to admit, I’ve never been here before.”

Bucky flicked his eyes back up at Steve, assessing him. His mid-blue shirt was perfectly ironed, his dark wash jeans clean and just tight enough to make Bucky salivate a little, but not so tight that he felt like he’d seen everything already. The bomber jacket, though. God was that sexy. He made a snap decision.

“Honestly, Steve, it isn’t worth it. You up for a late night pancake or something?”

Steve chuckled in apparent relief, reaching forward and lightly stroking Bucky’s hand where it lay next to his water glass. “I know just the place.”

 

***

 

Bucky was letting Steve order for him, and it was pretty much the single most terrifying thing that had ever happened to him, eclipsing even that one time when Natasha had hidden eighteen plastic spiders around his room without telling him. It wasn’t necessarily that he was a control freak about what he ate, more that he was entrusting Steve with choosing his _breakfast food._ According to every single soulmates dating column ever, there were some things your soulmate was just meant to know about you, like some sort of weird-ass twin telepathy.

If Steve couldn’t sense what Bucky’s favourite breakfast food was, they were going to have a problem.

As it was, Steve had been peering at the meat specials for ages now, and Bucky was beginning to get worried. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Canadian bacon, but it sure wouldn’t be high up on his list of breakfast foods he wanted to eat at 9pm.

“Do I get to choose a drink as well?” teased Steve, apparently picking up on Bucky’s nerves. “Or is that out of bounds?”

“Drinks as well,” replied Bucky grudgingly, rolling his own menu into a tube and pushing it backwards and forwards in front of himself. He felt like one of those girls getting steamrollered into eating salad by douchebag Tinder dates, except a bit of him was pretty excited.

If Steve got this right, he’d be able to enter a whole new world of boasting.

“Okay,” said Steve after a moment, flashing Bucky his best shit-eating grin and relaxing back in his chair. “I’m ready to order now. Go hide in the bathroom or something.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Steve, then pulled himself out of his chair and wandered across the diner towards the neon sign for the toilets. He wasn’t entirely sure why Steve knew this place, a hole-in-the-wall on a backstreet that Bucky must have shuffled past a thousand times, complete with a fully-fledged 50s theme. The waitresses wore white and red pressed dresses with smart yellow aprons, and all the tables and chairs were made out of a sticky-looking Formica that matched the colour scheme.  

It was the kind of place Bucky’s mom would never have let him inside of in a million years, and Bucky loved it.

Bucky lurked in the bathroom for a few minutes, leaning up against the tiny metal sink and Snapchatting Natasha, before his phone pinged with a text from Steve which featured the kissy face emoji and nothing else. Steve was normally very sweet and conservative over text, even more so in person. Today, with the sassy menu dictatorship and the provocative texting? Bucky was more than a little turned on.

With every passing day, Bucky realised that Steve was kind of a dick, not that anyone would ever believe him. Not that it mattered. Bucky was kind of a dick too.

 

***

 

Back at the table, Steve was sat smiling at the spread. There was barely room at the table for his water glass, let alone Bucky, but he slipped into his chair none the less, trying to be nonchalant as he looked for chocolate chip pancakes among the options on the table.

They appeared to be the only thing Steve hadn’t ordered, but weirdly enough, he thought he could get past it.

“So, did I guess right?” asked Steve hopefully, dropping the suave façade in favour of excited puppy.

“You couldn’t really have guessed wrong,” Bucky dodged. “If it’s a breakfast food, you’re on to a winner.”

Steve just kept finding new, brighter smiles to melt Bucky a little more.

 

***

 

Bucky had pretty much eaten his weight in waffles (‘ _in honour of Sam_ ,’ Steve had intoned, ‘ _who is currently back at out apartment watching crappy British comedy reruns as he has no life_ _unless Carol forces him to a game or something_ ’) when Steve finally leaned forwards in his chair and fixed him with a stare. “You know, you don’t have to eat all of it.”

“But I want to,” moaned Bucky, looking wistfully at the remaining melon on his plate. “It’s so good.”

Steve bit his bottom lip, looking down at his lap, and Bucky took the opportunity to study him unhindered. His eyelashes were longer than Natasha’s, much to her dismay, meaning that the second he looked down his eyes were hidden from view. There was a faint blush across his cheeks, which Bucky chalked up to the warmth inside the diner, making his lips look all the redder and more attractive.

God, Bucky wanted to kiss him.

Maybe not in front of a clique of elderly waitresses who all seemed to have known Steve since he was about two.

“Can I ask you something?” he blurted out suddenly to distract himself, because he was still five years older than Steve and whenever he got hung up on his looks he started to feel slightly lecherous.

“You just did,” replied Steve, once again proving that he had the mind of a ten year old smartass wrapped up in the body of a twenty-three year old with a great ass.

Bucky narrowed his eyes at him, making him chuckle. “Alright, I guess you get one more question,” Steve declared, acting as though he was some kind of world class diplomat.

Bucky was going to jump his bones one of these days.

“When did my soulmark come through on you?” he hedged. He’d always been curious about what was appearing on his soulmate’s arm, what path he was leaving behind himself without even knowing it. But, for the first eighteen years of his life, he’d honestly believed he had no soulmate, and that still stung raw.

“Ahh,” said Steve quietly. “I was wondering when you’d ask about that.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , the first thing I ever got from you was a doodle of a unicorn, which confused me no end considering the only people I knew who gave two shits about unicorns were five year old girls and I’d already worked out that my soulmate was going to be a dude.”

“That was for my sister,” Bucky murmured in reply, remembering drawing the picture for her 7th birthday card. “2004. That was ages before I got anything from you. Years.”

Steve sat across from Bucky, looking him dead in the eyes for a moment. When the moment passed, he sighed, and picked up his phone, scrolling madly. “Bucky, when I was a kid, I was sick. Really sick. Months in hospital, missed years at school, got Christmas gifts from the Make A Wish Foundation sick.” He turned the phone around, showing a photo of a skinny, pale child wearing a blue hospital robe covered in _IT’S MY BIRTHDAY_ and _10 TODAY_ badges, smiling weakly at the camera through a faceful of tubes and wires. Around his shoulders was a dark brown leather jacket, enormous on him to the extent that if the scene was any less tragic, Bucky would have laughed.

Bucky furrowed his eyebrows, looking at the poster boy for healthy living sat across from him, the same leather jacket thrown over his seat. “What?”

“It was a mixture of things,” Steve continued. “Asthma was the main one, but there were others, stuff that I couldn’t pronounce as a kid and don’t like to think about now. Essentially, I spent years in hospital, too weak to do anything, just watching cartoons on the TV and trying to pretend I didn’t realise that my mom was crying whenever she left the room.” His voice cracked slightly, and Bucky surged forwards, clutching Steve’s spare hand with his own. “I got your soulmark, I did. I got all your doodles and your scribbles. I guess I could have replied,” he paused. “I just didn’t want to get your hopes up, because I was ninety percent sure I was going to die before I even graduated middle school, let alone before I could go out looking for you.”

Bucky sat in silence, then climbed out of his seat, holding his hand out at Steve, who rose hesitantly and took it. As an after-thought, Bucky reached into his wallet, fishing out a $50 note and throwing it carelessly on the table, not giving a damn about change. He led Steve outside of the diner, down the street, until they were standing under a streetlamp.

“Bucky?” Steve whispered uncertainly.

Bucky shushed him quietly, reaching up to frame his face with his hands and brushing an errant bit of perfect blonde fringe out of his face, grumbling a little but refusing to be thrown when it immediately fell down again. They stood in silence for a moment, before Bucky reached forward and kissed him.

It was just a light touch of lips at first, Bucky immediately regretting not popping a mint or something first, desperate to make it as perfect as a first-grade kiss could be. After a second, Steve groaned, wrapping his arms tightly around Bucky’s waist and easing his mouth open, immediately licking inside gently.

Bucky sure hoped Steve liked the taste of coffee and melon, because that was definitely what he was getting.

Bucky crashed into the lamppost as Steve got more involved in the kiss, not caring that his shirt would be getting dirty, or that Steve had just shared something major and there was probably some kind of ethical issue with trying to make out with him minutes later. Nat always said that Bucky needed to learn to use his words more, not that he was going to tell her Steve's story. All he cared about was how soft and velveteen Steve’s lips were, how warm his arms were around Bucky’s waist.

For a second, everything was perfect, then Steve pulled back. “No,” he said firmly, leaving one hand on Bucky’s waist for reassurance, pulling the other through his own hair.

“What?” asked Bucky breathlessly, confused for what felt like the hundredth time that night.

“We’re going to do this properly,” he declared, running his hand through Bucky’s hair instead and ruining the artfully dishevelled look he’d had going on. “We have forever, Bucky, if you’ll have me. We can take this slow.”

Bucky really, really didn’t want to take it slow, but the promise of forever was too tantalising to throw away.

“Okay,” he replied, reaching out to hold Steve’s hand again for the walk back to the subway station. “Forever sounds pretty sweet.”

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the end, I promise, but I will be on hiatus for a while. I hope you all enjoyed it!


End file.
